Word from the Bird

A short story written in 1950s American slang:

Some cat with peepers and the jets comes up thinking I'm in orbit. Thinks I'm made in the shade. He's neither hip nor tight, but no wet rag either - so I figure I give him a chance. I ask: 'What's buzzin cuzzin?' and he gives me the word from the bird. He's been on the horn to the Ivy League and hears there's a radioactive party jumping up downtown. Asks me to follow his tail.

I was feeling pretty beat; I'd had some gig on 42nd street that was really rattling my cage. For two weeks I'd been saving bread to get a rock for my baby, looking sideways down the register, but some bird was singing dirty lullabies and I was starting to feel the heat. I figure it's time to split, just as this new gig promises to lay on some kicks.

We scream down the street and pass old-timer tanks and a hundred hot stacks: it always kills me to hall ass and go ape at the greasers. We floor this hottie with the pedal to the metal, sixteen blocks and maybe more. It almost goes goopy when we flip some cat walking the sidewalk: he tells us to 'Get Bent!' and looks real frosted.

Five more minutes, flat out, and we finally get with it. I eyeball the scene and claim dibs on my dolly jiving to some sounds. Her classy chassis would throw anyone to Cloud 9. Peepers is interested in the same chick, and I warn he's cruisin' for a bruisin' if he doesn't cut the gas and dig. 'Don't have a cow' he says, all apologies, 'Cool it'. I realise he was just some square looking to get cranked and I cut him some slack. The idea of this cat cookin' back seat bingo with any of baby in the room was a big tickle.

But although I made the scene on the stick, as the night moved on I lost my nuggets on liqour and started to nod: I wanted to pile up on some Zzz's and head back to my pad. It's not long before I decide to cut out and split, leaving the wet rags and cube cats to their weed and their bad news threads. I agitate the gravel with my baby on my arm and make out in the chariot: I'm flipping out and she doesn't dig, says I'm fast. I say hanging with her is unreal and she digs the jivetalk, suggests the flicks sometime next week, I say I'm there.